Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar will visit Pakistan to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Summit, being held in Islamabad on October 15-16.
This will be the first visit of an Indian EAM to Pakistan in the last 10 years.
Islamabad had invited Prime Minister Narendra Modi to attend the Summit. However, he has deputed Dr. Jaishankar to represent him.
The two-day event will include meetings focused on financial, economic, socio-cultural, and humanitarian cooperation among SCO member states.
MEA Spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal told a press conference Dr. Jaishankar will lead a delegation to Pakistan for the SCO Summit.
Currently, Pakistan holds the rotating chairmanship of the SCO Council of Heads of Government (CHG). In that capacity, it will host the event.
The Islamabad Summit will be preceded by a ministerial meeting and several rounds of senior officials’ meetings focused on financial, economic, socio-cultural, and humanitarian cooperation among the SCO member states.
The SCO, comprising India, China, Russia, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan, is an influential economic and security bloc that has emerged as one of the largest trans-regional international organizations.
India hosted the SCO Summit last year, in a virtual mode. Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif also attended it through a video link.
However, Pakistan’s then Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari visited India in May 2023 to attend the in-person two-day meeting of the SCO Council of Foreign Ministers in Goa, which was the first Pakistani foreign minister’s visit to India in almost 12 years.
Islamabad and New Delhi have a long history of strained relations, primarily due to the Kashmir issue as well as the cross-border terrorism emanating from Pakistan.
India has been maintaining that it desires normal neighborly relations with Pakistan while insisting that the onus is on Islamabad to create an environment that is free of terror and hostility for such an engagement.
Trade and terror cannot go together, India has said time and again.
Pakistan downgraded its ties with India after the Indian Parliament abrogated Article 370 on August 5, 2019.